How does Recovery as a Service Work?

Recovery as a Service providers use cloud technologies to create and store copies of vital applications and data. In the case of a critical failure or interruption of system functionality, client organizations can cease utilizing their existing infrastructure, switch to their cloud-hosted replicants, and restore from there to mitigate operational disruption.

What are the key components of RaaS?

The following are the main components of Recovery as a Service:

1. Backup/Replication: Backup and replication comprise the foundation of RaaS. Client organizations conduct regularly scheduled backups of their data and applications, replicating them on their provider's secure, cloud-hosted environments. This ensures that they have copies of their most up-to-date data on hand in case of data loss or disruption in their primary environment.

2. Recovery planning: Recovery planning involves the creation of a strategy and procedures for the restoration of replicated data. During this planning, organizations establish the most vital resources to prioritize during recovery and set out specific objectives with regard to recovery times. The purpose of this is to ensure swift recovery of critical functions so as to minimize downtime and operational disruption.

3. Failover & failback: When an incident occurs, leading to system disruption or failure, RaaS services are designed to enable automated failover response. This means that operations are switched from the primary environment to the cloud-hosted backup site. This enables organizations to restore their primary systems without interrupting operations. Subsequently, the RaaS service provider also handles the failback process, whereby the client organization’s operations are transitioned back to its primary environment after recovery.

What are common uses for RaaS?

Depending on the nature of a client organization, its location, and its risk profile, there are a variety of situations in which RaaS services can prove useful. Common use cases for RaaS include the following:

• Infrastructural failures: Organizations with extensive IT environments are susceptible to infrastructural failures of varying severity. These can stem from issues as simple as software bugs, misconfigurations, or even hardware failures. Utilizing RaaS enables organizations to have a readily accessible failsafe and means of recovery to prevent such issues from disrupting their operations.

  Cyberattacks: Cyberattacks pose many significant risks to organizations, including operational disruption, data loss, and ransomware encryption. Having a RaaS service in place ensures that organizations have a way of restoring their vital data resources to their pre-attack state to mitigate against the threat of cyberattacks.

  Natural disasters: Depending on where an organization is located, its physical IT infrastructure may be susceptible to the effects of natural disasters, increasing the risk of data loss. Using a RaaS service allows organizations in high-risk locations to have a readily-accessible remote storage facility that can allow them to safeguard and restore their data.

  
  

What are the benefits of RaaS?

Recovery as a Service offers a wide range of benefits. Key advantages of RaaS include the following:

• Scalability: By leveraging cloud infrastructure, RaaS allows organizations to scale resources up and down in accordance with their needs.

• Continuity: RaaS provides a reliable failover and failback solution, ensuring that operations can be quickly switched to cloud environments during recovery to minimize downtime.

• Cost-effectiveness: Since RaaS removes the need to invest in additional physical infrastructure, it is an economical recovery option for organizations seeking to safeguard critical data resources.